


We Could Both Laugh at Distance

by sangi



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-08
Updated: 2007-08-08
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3387032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangi/pseuds/sangi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t love you,” she says, watching him with amber brown eyes. “I don’t even like you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Could Both Laugh at Distance

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2007, posted again here for archival reasons.

1\. loyalty

 

“I don’t love you,” she says, watching him with amber brown eyes. “I don’t even like you.” Mai’s voice is her normal monotone, and her face is straight and proud; she isn’t looking down to see his face. “I’ll always love someone else.”

 

“Why are you here?” It comes out more bitter than it should, he muses, as her face turns the slightest bit sour. She shrugs after a moment and shakes her head.

 

“I’m not sure.” Mai sits on the other side of the wall now, near the stairs back up to surface. There’s a bit of light peeking through the crack, and she knows it’s well past daybreak. “They’ll be coming now,” she says quietly, letting the sound of it echo throughout the hollow room.

 

“Yeah,” he says after a slow pause. “I know.”

 

She stays for more than few minutes until she hears the knocking on the large, iron door, and then she slips through as the guards come in. He swears he can hear her whisper a soft goodbye on the wind, flitting by like a falling meteor, but then again…

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to give us information?” The guard asks, holding something large and spiked in his hands.

 

“Positive,” he says surely, before the first blow falls.

 

* * *

 

 

2\. abstract

 

“I don’t understand why you visit him, anyways,” Ty Lee says, absently tracing patterns on the marble of the intricate floor. Her hair is down and it’s a very unusual sight, but she told Mai she’s trying a new way to make her aura pinker. “He’s just a rebel, and he’s nowhere near as cute as the water tribe boy.”  

 

Mai is sitting next to her, staring out into the far-off distance. Her hair is in its usual style, but her eyes are half-closed from exhaustion. She’s twirling a knife, her finger through the loop on the end.

 

“Why do you go, Mai?” Ty Lee asks, and Mai only half-hears the question. It’s a sunny day; the monsoon is over and done. Her outfit is still stifling in the heat, though it’s a considerably cooler day, but then of course her mind is somewhere else, as she takes the knife in her hands:

 

“Why do you go?” Ty Lee persists.

 

“… I’m not sure,” It’s a slow and hesitant statement.

 

The knife, a blur against the black darkness of the night, it’s gleaming making it look like a star, makes a resounding thud as it embeds itself in the tree not one hundred feet away.

 

* * *

 

 

3\. red wine

 

“You know I’m going to kill him, right Mai?” Azula asks, grin feral. There’s something in the way she walks that’s intimidating and overpowering, something that makes someone unintentionally take a step back as she looks into your eyes.

 

Gold clashes with amber, and in that something passes between them. Mai’s eyes are seemingly dull and lifeless, devoid of anything but the glare of the lanterns. Her mouth’s corners are upturned, though, as Azula looks away in defeat.

 

“Yes,” Mai says quietly, into the wind. The feeling of these words in her mouth tastes bitter and spicy like the fire flakes she’s so fond of, “I’m quite aware.”

 

Azula and Mai look at each other, and they’re both smiling now. Azula loves the feeling of being in control and Mai loves letting her think so. “His blood has already stained the walls,” she comments idly, picking at her perfect fingernails. “It’s really too bad,” and then the frown on Mai’s face is back.

 

She turns and moves to walk away, but the princess’s voice stops her.

 

“I hope you realize that when you go to see him, he’ll be covered in red.” Mai doesn’t have to turn around to know that Azula is silently laughing. She stares at the black sky, sees a white blur, and makes a wish.

 

* * *

 

 

4\. mask

 

“I don’t have emotions,” she says, and she can see him nodding his head, as if he believed her. “I don’t,” she repeats. Jet’s laugh isn’t as bitter as you’d think – it’s the kind of laugh that echoes through the tension and cuts it like a blade.

 

His shirt is, as Azula said, bloodstained. It’s as red as red can be (a dark violent crimson with slashes of brick red in the middle, where the blood is still fresh, still bleeding). His pants are filthy, and he doesn’t have the usual piece of wheat grass in his mouth. His lips are cracked, and his hands look burnt, while he’s barefoot.

 

It’s been a long day for them both, and she’s tired, and he’s exhausted, and somehow they just don’t give up. She can feel the corners of her mouth turn up a bit, but quickly quells the feeling.

 

Mai looks up to see him still staring at her from half-lidded, lazy eyes; she blushes lightly, the flush creeping slowly like a spider up her face. He lopsidedly smiles - there’s a flash of fireworks outside in the city; _why hasn’t my wish come true?_ she wonders, staring at the sparks.

 

“Yes,” Jet says dryly, “I don’t have emotions either.”

 

* * *

 

 

5\. de ja vu

 

The only sound in the room is the soft breathing of the boy, and the girl watches as he sleeps. When his eyes are closed and his mouth firmly shut, he’s much more tranquil. She traces the curved line of his jaw and his breath hitches though he’s sleeping, and when Mai stops, he groans and turns over in his restless sleep. She lets out a sigh of relief.

 

It’s freezing in the dungeons, and he’s not wearing any shoes, she notices; the sunlight is warm as Mai steps out into it.

 

The next time she comes:

 

A pair of worn, but comfortable-looking, shoes are under one arm, the other one holding open the heavy metal door. She curses at herself in her mind, because what the hell is she doing? But then again, the shoes are left lying peacefully on the floor.

 

“Sometimes I think I know you,” she says, and it’s so quiet that she can’t tell if she said it or thought it, but the strange words stick with her for longer than they should. That night, as she listens to Ty Lee babble on about how lately there have been many shooting star sightings, she smiles and actually listens.

 

* * *

 

 

6\. lightning

 

“The last think you will see,” sneers Azula, golden eyes amused, “before you die, is the lightning from my hands. It’ll be as bright as a flashing star in your eyes, as you slowly die.” They are folded in her lap now, demure, graceful. She’s dressed in green, and it’s not a good color on her. It’s obvious she was born into fire, and fire she is. Cold and haughty, Azula smiles amusedly at the young man.

 

The two Dai Li on either side of her shift a bit at the sudden tension in the room. Gold meets brown, but it’s a cold amber that gazes into his soulful eyes, and she can see the hate and anger. Azula can see everything in Jet, and she motions the two guards forward into the light, showing the painful weapons they held in their hands.

 

She smiles as they advance; he closes his eyes and prays for mercy to his gods. Azula is a horrible, horrible witch who will eventually get her due: but now isn’t that time. The guards are giving him leering looks now, and he watches with blank, dark eyes. Her cruel smile is perfectly in place as she sashays out the door.

 

“I don’t know what Mai sees in you, anyways.”

 

* * *

 

 

7\. astrology

 

They’re sitting again, in his room. The sky outside is bright and full of stars, some falling slowly, and some falling quickly. They both stare through the bars in the ceiling, absently pointing out the different ones, and every once and awhile closing their eyes to make a wish.

 

Sometimes they speak.

 

“You see the stars, right there? That’s Sagittarius.”

 

“What’s that one?”

 

“Ursa Major.”

 

And there’s always a long silence between the words. Sometimes they talk about things other than the stars.

 

“…they think you’re dead.”

 

A frown. “Your friend in the pink is really annoying.”

 

“The Avatar and his friends, I mean.” Brows furrowed.

 

“She comes and visits me and babbles on and on…” it trails off.

 

And then it’s silent, until:

 

“I can get you out of here, you know.” He raises his eyebrows at her silent, forlorn profile on the floor, the moonbeams shining through the bars, giving her a strange striped appearance. Feeling his gaze on her, she turns her eyes to the side, and attempts to grin. It doesn’t work, but he laughs anyways.

 

When she ties the ropes around his wrists that night, they are nowhere near as tight as they should be. And when he ‘kicks’ her, it’s barely more than a poke.

 

* * *

 

 

8\. wishes

 

_I shouldn’t be doing this,_ she thinks, in the halls of the palace. It’s the dead of the night, and everyone’s asleep. The air, hot and humid, sticks to her skin through the thickness of her clothing. Mai’s breathing is slightly loud and just labored enough to make it seem not there at all.

 

Earlier, in the darkness and sullenness of the night, she could see his face, outlined by the bright lantern lights behind him (hair softly just so, as if there was a soft light glancing this way and that) and she could see his eyes (cold with a hint of apprehension) and she could hear the tremble in his voice as he told her, meticulously, detached, “Be careful.”

 

She closes her eyes for a peaceful moment. _I made a wish, on a shooting star, nonetheless,_ she chants, _and it will come true._

Heat overcomes her as the air stills, and the breezes are gone. Mai stares up into the pale lights shining from galaxies away, and not for the first time in awhile, finds herself wishing for something she’s never had. She curses at herself when she catches what she’s doing.

The hood gets pulled over her head and she rushes into the night, towards the jailhouse.

 

* * *

 

 

9\. shock

 

Mai can feel Jet’s eyes on her as she leans forward into Zuko and kisses him. She can feel the shock coursing through his body, the anger, the resentment, and the hate. But she kisses Zuko anyways, the kiss light and gentle and everything it should be.

 

Her kisses with Jet are deep and passionate (flashes of supernovas and wishes that came true) and so full of anything but gentle thoughts. It’s the exact opposite of what’s she’s doing now (this is wrong, wrong, wrong). But she does it anyways, and pulls away after only a few moments. Zuko looks confused, and Jet’s dangerous aura is hateful.

 

She looks between the two, and blinks for one moment, before whispering to Zuko, “I’m sorry,” and knocking him out.

 

Jet comes up to her and firmly grabs hold of her arm and leads her away. He looks angry would be an understatement. He’s muttering something underneath his breath ( _it had to be done, but dammit-_ ).

 

When she speaks, it’s low and gentle, into the wind. “Look, a meteor shower.” She faintly remembers Ty Lee’s rant about how common they were these days – and did that have anything to do with the comet approaching?

 

He looks up.

 

* * *

 

 

10\. moonbeams

 

When Sozin’s comet comes, it’s the end of summer. The rainy season has been gone for two months, yet the humid stickiness of the air has been retained. When she opens her eyes on this fateful day, in the camp of the Avatar, with Jet lying off somewhere to the right of her, she breathes in deeply, savoring the thick feel of the air.

 

She shakes Jet awake. “Wake up,” she says. “It’s time.”

 

The battle is only hours later, but her and Jet won’t be a part of the main battle, at (surprisingly) Mai’s insistence. Instead, they would be infiltrating the palace. But of course, things never go according to plan.

 

As a large fireball heads their way, Mai whispers loudly, “Close your eyes.”

 

But when the blow never comes, she opens her eyes, along with Jet next to her, to see Zuko’s back facing them, his front half already preparing to attack his sister. “Go,” he commands, and they scurry away into the palace, to finish their job.

 

After they retrieved the scroll and turned off the metal engine that ran the large Fire Nation machines, Mai and Jet marched outside to look at the battle before them: firebending warriors are on the ground, groaning, while many earthbenders (she can discern Toph and Katara the waterbender in the distance) fight the last ones.

 

In the night sky, it looks like daytime because of the light from the overly large comet. But there, in the blackness remaining…

 

They both turn to the sky.

 

“Look,” she says unnecessarily. “A falling star.”


End file.
